Former Scottish first minister expresses concern about interim advice from EHRC
The final years of Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership were dominated by debate around the passing of her gender recognition legislation. Photograph: Stuart Wallace/Rex/Shutterstock
The lives of transgender people in the UK are at risk of being made “unliveable”, Nicola Sturgeon has said in her first public comments about the supreme court ruling on the legal definition of a woman, which was prompted by legislation she oversaw in the Scottish parliament.
The UK supreme court ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act referred only to a biological woman and to biological sex. This was the conclusion of a long-running court action by the gender critical campaign group For Women Scotland, who objected to a law passed at Holyrood aimed at improving women’s representation on public boards being extended to transgender women.
Sturgeon said the supreme court’s ruling – “by very definition … the law of the land” – could not be questioned but expressed profound concerns about interim advice published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission amounting to a blanket ban on trans people using toilets and other services of the gender they identify as.
“The question for me, and I think for a lot of people, is how that is now translated into practice; can that be done in a way that, of course, protects women, but also allows trans people to live their lives with dignity and in a safe and accepted way.
“I would be very concerned if that interim guidance became the final guidance and I hope that is not the case because I think that potentially makes the lives of trans people almost unliveable.
“It certainly doesn’t make a single woman any safer to do that because the threat to women comes from predatory and abusive men.”
The former first minister and SNP leader added that it was not inevitable that the judgment would make the lives of transgender people “impossibly difficult”, but there was a danger that certain interpretations could put transgender rights at risk.
“If that is the case, then yes, it would be my view that the law as it stands needs to be looked at,” she told reporters at the Scottish parliament on Tuesday.
The Scottish media and prominent gender critical campaigners have been calling on Sturgeon to respond since the ruling, which prompted jubilation among gender critical activists and sent shock waves through the trans community.
Sturgeon has been a staunch advocate of transgender rights, and the final years of her premiership were dominated by the increasingly toxic and polarised debate around the passing of her flagship gender recognition reforms in late 2022.
The bill, which was passed with cross-party support at Holyrood, made it easier and less intrusive for individuals to legally change their gender, extending the new system of self-identification to 16- and 17-year-olds for the first time. But it was immediately blocked by the Rishi Sunak’s UK government as cutting across the UK-wide Equality Act.
After this unprecedented veto, Sturgeon accused some opponents of the bill of using women’s rights as a “cloak of acceptability to cover up what is transphobia”, telling the NewsAgents podcast that some critics of the legislation were also “deeply misogynist, often homophobic, possibly some of them racist as well”.
On Tuesday Sturgeon rejected the suggestion made by many of her critics that she owed them an apology after the ruling.
“I fundamentally, and respectfully, disagree,” she said. “I recognise the different views on this, I’ve always recognised the different views on this, but I think its important that respect runs in both directions.”
But co-director of For Women Scotland, Susan Smith, said Sturgeon’s claim that life would be made “unliveable” was “frankly wrong and quite disturbing”. Smith told BBC Scotland News that single-sex spaces were needed to provide women with “privacy, dignity, safety at time when they’re vulnerable”.
Transgender people’s lives at risk of being made ‘unliveable’, says Nicola Sturgeon
Scottie's Playtime 
Misogynist and LGBT+ phobic men must be very content over this controversy they can continue with their vile agendas under cover – the Europe right-wing groups are already ‘grooming’ some feminist groups to their ’cause’.
Ignorance and Hate flourishes.
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Hi Roger. Again I don’t understand how something that doesn’t affect someone else bothers them so much that they can be so passionate about stopping / ending it. Someone else being trans doesn’t affect me at all, so why should I care. If the Pope gets to pick his preferred name why not everyone else. Why can James whose name on his birth certificate is James go by Jim and it is OK, but he can’t go by Jane. If kids / teachers can’t use pronouns then why are the boys still called he / him and the girls still called she / her. These hater people are trying hard to not understand because you don’t have to understand the science nor believe in it to be kind, caring, and polite. I don’t understand a lot about straight people but I can be nice, kind, and accepting to them. That is what these straight cis people can’t seem to be. Accepting or even tolerant. I think it is a desperate inferiority complex that they are trying to compensate for. One thing that is a proven fact, the data shows states with the highest religious membership and pushing all these anti-trans bills have the most porn site requests for … trans porn. Yes the thing they claim must be destroyed is the very thing they crave to watch, to masturbate to, that they fanaticize over. Is that why they work so hard to outlaw those people. Scared they might get caught? Scared it might answer their own feelings of being in the wrong body? Look I know when I was 16 I joined the church youth group that the son of the farmer I worked for was in. Why did I do it? Not because I believed but because we knew each other during summers and I had the deepest crush on him. We were the same age and I so craved a relationship … heck I wanted to feel his body pressed against mine and you know. When I was being abuse at home I would pretend in my mind it was him so I could get through it. So when I started to go to their church and heard how vehemently they were against what I was, who I was, saying that how I felt was so horrible I should be put to death … I prayed as hard as I knew how to have that “evil” removed from me. I never thought of it or me as evil before I started going to their church. I won’t go into how that made me feel. But here I was being routinely physically and sexually abused at home and being told by my new friends and the leaders of their church I was evil and deserved death. If I was scared to be found out before I sure was now. So my life went from bad to worse as the people who tried to get me to join their church were preaching to me that if they knew I was a gay teen felt I should die and they would kick me out. How could I love their god when he and them did not love the real me. They loved the pretend to be straight me. So that is why I enjoy Reverend Trevors videos so much. No child should be made to feel broken and evil while the straight cis people around them are told how loving their god is. Hugs
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You are brave to open up with these memories Scottie. These are heavy loads.
There is no excuse for the behaviour of those who claim to be in touch with a ‘Loving God’ and then to subject fellow people to prejudice and hate just because that person has a different ‘set’ or ‘construct’ or ‘outlook’…call it what you will.
We have a grandson who is bi-sexual he has gone through a civil ceremony with someone who to our 70+ British eyes is a sweet girl, but does not subscribe to any gender and thus we understand that they are ‘they’ are it were. When we met them first we were simply bowled over by them and took to them straight away. It was a fun weekend visit Sheila shared an interest in the role of medieval women they were studying and the pair were chatting away.
We both admit we don’t ‘get’ the nuances of the gender fluidity and identity issues, but that is simply because we have been sort of outside of the whole development that’s been going on. It doesn’t matter though, as far as we are concerned ‘they are a great couple’ and that’s all that matters.
As I said to ‘M’ (still not sure how they spell their name, they’ve changed it) ‘Well kid you’re part of this funny family now’ -They grinned and said ‘thanks’ .
This identity. What does it matter? Compassion Respect and Tolerance are the bottom lines.
Take care and best wishes to both of you.
Roger
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Hi Roger. I love how accepting and inclusive you are to your family members that have ways that are different than you grew up understanding. It is grand. But as you say you don’t have to understand it to accept and celebrate the new person in your life. People like you and Sheila are ambassadors to your age group to others who may not be so accepting but simply don’t understand having no family members like that. That is how in the US acceptance of gay people became so accepted is that gay people came out showing the straight people they were family members, their doctors, their lawyers, their friends, the people they met every day. That is what the fundamentalist haters were so fearful of happening for trans people that they went on a full court press, went all in on demonizing trans people before they could be accepted by society. But I think other than the power in the government they are losing this culture war also. Because the trans people are normal humans among us. That terrifies them.
Roger the reason for me responding / extending this thread is your comment saying this. “You are brave to open up with these memories Scottie. These are heavy loads.” Yes Roger they are. It is a curse the abusers gave me that I carry even after they are dead. The memories invade my dreams, the individuals who abused me even show up in dreams that are not memories but they are badgering me in the new different situations. The male adult who adopted me and terrorized me until I as 24. He raped me the first night I was home from my second tour in the military. Just to prove he could. When he came at me I reverted to the little boy he abused instead of the trained military man I had become.
But Roger my fear is that by sharing my history, my life during my childhood I am maybe hurting others such as yourself or your wife. Everyone who reads what I write I fear I may be damaging. Yes most of the time when I detail my abuse it helps me greatly, it is like getting poison out of your body, it helps me deal with it all. I can never forget the feelings, the pain of each blow, the humiliation of being made to drink urine in front of others to prove their power over me, the being give to my hell spawn female siblings dates to give oral or anal sex when the females did not want to do it themselves. The memories of the hell spawn female sibling having parties when the adopting parents were away for the entire weekend which they often did and I was a party gift taken to a back bedroom by anyone who wished or outside behind the house, I was 7 years old and it went on until she left the home. But by then I was well trained as the people I lived with had been using / abusing my body since I was three. Maybe my training in pleasing was why so many “straight” friends of hers took advantage of me. But they were older teenagers with needs so maybe they simply did not care as long as they got what they needed.
I can’t escape the memories, nor the feelings. Not just the feelings of when it happened but the lasting emotional issues I suffer to this day as if I was still having it, I wake up terrified I was still that child being grabbed dragged to the bedroom, thrown on the bed. It is as real to me now as it was then.
But do I have a right to inflict that on every person who reads it. That pain, that feelings … that which Ron calls evil on others. Does that make me an abuser of them? That is my worry. How have I harmed you and your wife with my own history? Do I have the right to do that to you? Especially as I care about you. But then I get overwhelmed and the only way to help myself is to write it out. But should I post it? I am confused and the more I come to care for others the more I realize I may be hurting the very people I care about. Thanks for reading this. Hugs
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When a person is hurting Scottie there has to comes a time when it is important to share with others in some way. Those folk may not be able to work in the same way as a professional, but they can listen and offer their wishes, sympathies and understanding.
This then becomes your safe space.
You are not hurting me Scottie and you should keep on posting whenever you feel you must.
You have had an unimaginably painfully time and now we are going through another officially sanctioned hateful time which makes things even more difficult.
Wishing you whatever peace you can find. When you do, hold it and nurture it, for those precious interludes.
Our caring thoughts.
Roger & Sheila
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Thank you friend. The idea haunted me that I could be an abuser just as those who abused me were. That I might be inflicting the memories on others like I carried in me causing them the nightmares / emotions I have to deal with is horrifying. It would mean that somehow without meaning to I became as harmful as those who abused me. I realized now that while I may share the memories I can not share the feelings / interactions of emotions that also happened when those memorize were created. While the people who read my writings of my history, my memories they won’t experience them as I did. While they might imagine the pain or humiliations I felt, they can’t feel the depth of those feelings I did when the memories were created with their full impact imprinted on all I am.
However that is a realization of the mind, or intellect. It doesn’t stop me from feeling responsible if I cause harm or hurt to another by sharing what I lived through, no matter how much good it might do to me. The god you follow knew what was coming for him, but he never pushed the horror of it on those who followed him. I feel I have no right to push the horror of my childhood, my early life on others. Yet the alternative is to hold it in suffering in silence until it destroys me.
How can I be happy reducing my pain by adding it to those who are my friends and followers of my blog. It seems unreasonable to me. You say I have not harmed you and I am forever grateful for that. But you are an amazingly strong person with a deep spiritual connection to your deity. What about those that don’t share that same connection. I deeply and seriously thank you for the many kind words you have offered me. They mean a lot to me, and have given me strength and peace.
I have struggled with this burden for several years since I had people write to me in the comments that I moved them to tears. I am no closer to an answer that will sooth my need to express my pain to relieve myself and the great fear I may be causing harm / abusing others who read what I post about my abuse. To put it mildly I am confused on the issue. Hugs
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Hi Scottie, my friend.
For the person who sees the world as a place in which they feel better by helping, putting something positive in or just trying to be caring, there are always layers. They also feel they have a responsibility, as you have demonstrated.
Then there are those who don’t care as long as they get what they want.
It has been an assertion of mine that one of the problems with the world is that the folk who care are repairing the damage done by those who don’t care and who should be made to recompense in some way the damage they have done.
That’s the kind of socialist I am. If you don’t shape up and help of your own free will, The State will make sure you do.
Therefore, folk such as yourself who have suffered horribly do, quite understandably feel they should not pass their experiences onto others, for as you say fear of ‘damaging’ the reader.
And yet what of the reader? Where do they stand in this? Where can they stand?
Yes we all have triggers. There are subjects, books, topics I avoid because I will likely lapse into a red mist of anger. And it is not a pretty sight particularly on FaceBook.
If possible avoid a reader should avoid the triggers, do not go there. If going there is a necessity it means there will be challenges to deal with. The reader should think before acting though.
If there are not triggers, but feelings of empathy, or sorrow or compassion then a reader should act and do what they can, though carefully and not inadvertently make things worse by some way. But the reader should (if not suffering a trigger) demonstrate care, and compassion.
We therefore do what we can, as best we can, how we can, when we can to help, to aid, to support, to do something positive. If necessary defend a victim or confront a heartless mocker or phobic sort (whoops I am in trigger territory, I do tend to go at those sorts, no holds barred).
Do not therefore feel you should hold yourself back Scottie, if you feel you have to say something, to relieve the ache or the torment. There are times when this is essential. You have a right to be heard.
Take care now.
Best wishes to Ron.
Roger & Sheila
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Wise words, thank you Roger. (As to whoops I am in trigger territory, I do tend to go at those sorts, no holds barred). Here you need not hold back. There is wisdom even in your rants, and justice in your words, and loving care in your intent. Hugs
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Thank you so much Scottie for your words of support.
The problem is getting the balance right. As some more incisive religious folk will argue. It is the sin you should rail against while winning back the sinner from their path.
This becomes for me a near impossible task when viewing the antics of Trump, the Court around him and those who unconditionally support him.
Oh it’s complicated!
You take care now, best wishes to Ron too
Roger & Sheila.
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I’m not sure whose leading the regressive charge in the English speaking world: the US or the UK. Thankfully I live in neither. Given that Gender self ID legislation was passed unanimously by the NZ Parliament just a few years ago, I don’t think there’s any need to panic here yet. But we do need to be mindful of a small minority of gender critical advocates, now having the support of the ACT political party.
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Hi Barry. Here we call the UK TERF Island. I don’t know who is pushing the anti-trans hate in the UK but I know who is pushing it the hardest here. The fundamentalist Christians. It seems that they hate anyone who is different from the 1950s gender role stereotypes of straight cis with men in charge and women subservient to them. They have become strident about pushing their church doctrines on everyone insisting on their church doctrines pushed in public schools, that their church / religion get special rights to ignore laws and rules they don’t like. They demand the right to disrespect and discriminate against those not following their version of how Christian life but also demand that they must be respected. They demand public spaces cater to their outdated moral views by not including anything others might want. Libraries and media must conform to their standards regardless of what others want. They are a small minority but they are vocal and driven, and again they disregard the wants, needs, or wishes of anyone who doesn’t conform to their ways. They demand public schools conform using parental rights but they disregard the majority of parents that do not agree with them. They are very powerful with tRump as president, they have managed to take over the SCOTUS because they spend a huge amount of money on their cause of taking over, and they totally captured the Republican Party again because they are willing to spend the money to get the power over others they crave. They openly demand a fundamentalist Christian nation. Best wishes.
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